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This change did more harm than good, since LoM took yet another arrow to the knee.

Edit:
And you are also one of the only captains to have stacked fate, and now that the build's zenith has come and gone.......

No, it was the initial changes to Fate that did more harm then good if you ask me. Now Fate is where it should be, instead of being so grossly overpowered that it renders all other power-related abilities/legacies/traits insignificant.

340 is from a 2A emblem with maxed legacy. That's cheaper since U10, but still, a second age buff stick/emblem?

That also translates to 340 power per minute or 56.66 every 6 seconds. Not very big.

It's not that bad either. 56.66 power every 6 seconds is a nice little boost in my opinion, and can be of benefit to someone if they struggling with power. Its' not the greatest buff ever imagined, but it's not that bad either.

Gotta say I use the focus buff as punishment for the "buff me" spam tell's. Useful in some raid bosses but in those instances I tend to use the victory banner and switch to song-brother with fellowship brother, unless we are getting pounded to &&&&e.... Even crit buff the healers.

Even if they made each point of Fate give 20 icpr, LoM would still be in a rather bad state IMO. Power is only a part of the problems with LoM.

Even the Captain Developer said the LoM trait line needs some work, and that was before this last update that nerfed Fate. So I agree with you that LoM is a problem independent of this whole Fate debacle.

From what I've seen playing with Captain tanks - their biggest problem seems to be holding threat - especially against lots of adds. And that's especially an issue since a lot of the challenge modes and boss fights now have copious amounts of adds that tanks are expected to protect their group from. That just looks frustrating as hell for a captain to try and do right now to me - though I've never tried it personally.

From what I've seen playing with Captain tanks - their biggest problem seems to be holding threat - especially against lots of adds. And that's especially an issue since a lot of the challenge modes and boss fights now have copious amounts of adds that tanks are expected to protect their group from. That just looks frustrating as hell for a captain to try and do right now to me - though I've never tried it personally.

That's one of the three big problems (the other two being power regeneration and tanking tools).

With the Victory Banner nerf it turned a very frustrating drain on power into one that's downright crippling.

And you should give tanking a go, just to see what it's like =)

Maley Oakensage, Captain of Elendilmir

Alas Elendilmir, may you *jingle jangle* forever in the Forgotten West

My second character is a warden so I used to tank a lot. I just had to retire him due to certain conflicts I rather not get into, and I have a friend who does most of my tanking for me now. If that was to ever change though - and I wanted to start tanking again, I'd probably dust off my Warden instead. That class is insanely powerful and loads of fun - while tanking as a Captain looks like trying to cook with only half a kitchen.

My second character is a warden so I used to tank a lot. I just had to retire him due to certain conflicts I rather not get into, and I have a friend who does most of my tanking for me now. If that was to ever change though - and I wanted to start tanking again, I'd probably dust off my Warden instead. That class is insanely powerful and loads of fun - while tanking as a Captain looks like trying to cook with only half a kitchen.

This is actually why I enjoy tanking on captain and why most of the good wardens I know enjoyed warden tanking significantly more before RoI: because it's not faceroll easy. You have to actually plan out how to do it and use strategy, as opposed to a guard which tends to be "use skills when they light up" (much like captain healing) or how warden works for most people now, which would be "hit EoB as many times as possible". The lack of power in our tanking tools compared to the other 2 (3, I guess, if you count chanks?) classes means you have to actually know what you're doing when you're doing it, so it's much more rewarding when you succeed, at least in my opinion.

That being said, captain tanking still needs buffs. I'm hoping we get a couple nice aggro buffs and/or a bit of a morale boost that makes us more effective than we currently are but less effective than the "main tanks".

Side note on the original topic: Focus, in and of itself, is not a bad bonus. However, Jeremi, you're looking at it independantly whereas everyone else is looking at it in relation to what they have to give up to get it. 340 ICPR isn't anything to scoff at by itself, but I don't know a single good player that would take that over 1800 crit or 2000 parry.

Side note on the original topic: Focus, in and of itself, is not a bad bonus. However, Jeremi, you're looking at it independantly whereas everyone else is looking at it in relation to what they have to give up to get it. 340 ICPR isn't anything to scoff at by itself, but I don't know a single good player that would take that over 1800 crit or 2000 parry.

Yeah most players prefer critical rating, as do I in most situations. But on long power intensive fights (which are becoming rarer and rarer on this game I'll admit) I have always preferred Focus. I used to use it on ministrels during Saruman for example rather they wanted it or not - because it did help the group more than the critical buffs did in my opinion. And now that power is no longer endless and simple to get, I think the buff is respectable again.

For a recent example, I used it the other day on a hunter in a smaug raid, because he kept running out of power - and it made a difference. Putting down victory banner + Focus with Song Brother can turn even the worst power-manager into a power house, and I believe that is an important part of this class - identifying weaknesses in a group and helping to fix it. Focus can help a Captain do that.

Far as wardens go - I never played the class before RoI, but I find it incredibly fun to play and don't spam Exultation of Battle, but I probably have an unusual style of warden compared to others. That class has so much good stuff there is probably a thousand different ways to play it and still be successful.

Yeah most players prefer critical rating, as do I in most situations. But on long power intensive fights (which are becoming rarer and rarer on this game I'll admit) I have always preferred Focus. I used to use it on ministrels during Saruman for example rather they wanted it or not - because it did help the group more than the critical buffs did in my opinion. And now that power is no longer endless and simple to get, I think the buff is respectable again.

And this probably ticked the minis off to no end.....

The amount of healing you denied the group for Saruman because of your choice of crit buff over ICPR buff is actually fairly large. That's what LMs are for, NOT the Focus buff.

Maley Oakensage, Captain of Elendilmir

Alas Elendilmir, may you *jingle jangle* forever in the Forgotten West

The amount of healing you denied the group for Saruman because of your choice of crit buff over ICPR buff is actually fairly large. That's what LMs are for, NOT the Focus buff.

No they actually thanked me for giving them focus after the fight, and said I had made the right decision. It all depends on the group and the situation.

It really doesn't matter how hard your heals hit if you don't have any power left to heal people with after all. And if Captains weren't meant to help out with power and that was only a Loremaster function, then Captains wouldn't have the Focus buff to begin with. So the developers must disagree with you about that.

I can sum up what I'm trying to say this way - if you aren't running out of power then yes, more Critical is better. But if you are running out of power - more In-Combat-Power is better.

No they actually thanked me for giving them focus after the fight, and said I had made the right decision. It all depends on the group and the situation.

It really doesn't matter how hard your heals hit if you don't have any power left to heal people with after all. And if Captains weren't meant to help out with power and that was only a Loremaster function, then Captains wouldn't have the Focus buff to begin with. So the developers must disagree with you about that.

I can sum up what I'm trying to say this way - if you aren't running out of power then yes, more Critical is better. But if you are running out of power - more In-Combat-Power is better.

Thing is, the amount of power healed per minute through Focus is less than what you get from 1 Rallying Cry, at least for my Captain. It is so insignificant that you can easily make up for it as a Captain. I did Saruman T2HM quite a few times on my Captain @ lvl 75, and lets just say power was the least of our concerns.

Give the Minstrels the crit buff. There is no life beyond the crit buff.

Yes please. I have a cappy, but consider the mini my main. An extra 360 power per minute... that is roughly a single heal. Most combat does not last that long. In 99% of all LOTRO, this buff will never fully proc. For the other 1% (long boss fights) A single crit will likely provide more benefit than the entirety of the focus buff.

As a mini, I have not needed power since the introduction of the coda. Cappies that think light armor classes need focus nerf the entire fellow. And the ones that refuse to adjust on request find my ignore list before the fellow ends. Putting on my cappy hat, everyone gets crit. When anyone asks for a different buff, they get it. They are the only ones able to determine what their build/playstyle needs. (I'm running across a lot of tanks these days that are all set on their mits and want crit as well). In all my years of captaining... I only recall 1 request for focus. I found its not even useful to worry about on the backup LI until demand increases.

Putting on my cappy hat, everyone gets crit. When anyone asks for a different buff, they get it. They are the only ones able to determine what their build/playstyle needs. (I'm running across a lot of tanks these days that are all set on their mits and want crit as well).

Same here, tanks get parry, everyone else gets crit. If someone wants something different, they can ask for it.

Like what's been said throughout the thread, Focus just doesn't do enough, regardless of whatever Fate => ICPR is set at.

Maley Oakensage, Captain of Elendilmir

Alas Elendilmir, may you *jingle jangle* forever in the Forgotten West

The legacied buffs are around 20% of the unbuffed values, so Focus is ok in that regard. However looking at the unlegacied values we have a different story: Crit buff is around 10% while Focus is at around 3-5% (and the total value being less than a single stat slice on gear). So that definitely needs some adjustment.

This is just looking at how the buffs compare by numbers, not how useful each one is, which is situational and subjective.

Even if they made each point of Fate give 20 icpr, LoM would still be in a rather bad state IMO. Power is only a part of the problems with LoM.

Not to derail our weekly Jeremi/Almagnus fight, but Elrantiri is totally right. To be at least somewhat constructive in this thread (despite the fact that the following has nothing to do with the Focus buff), here are the issues I see that result in LoM's bad power situation:

Blade-Brother and Song-Brother both have power restoration on Inspire. Shield-Brother does not.

Hands of Healing and Lead the Charge trait lines both include power cost reduction in their trait set bonuses. Leader of Men does not.

The necessity of Vitality stacking reduces the number of Rallying Cries a tanking Captain gets and reduces the power restoration from each Rallying Cry as well.

Cainwen Ciaphas, Captain of Crickhollow, HERO OF MIDDLE EARTH!!!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My opinions are my own!

That's one othe problems with the buffs and their legacies that needs to be addressed.

IMO, all of the buff legacies (for the three Tactics and Motivating Speech) should all be rolled into the base skill. That alone would drastically improve the perception of Focus from ROFLBAD to somewhat ok.

Originally Posted by furtim

here are the issues I see that result in LoM's bad power situation:

Blade-Brother and Song-Brother both have power restoration on Inspire. Shield-Brother does not.

Hands of Healing and Lead the Charge trait lines both include power cost reduction in their trait set bonuses. Leader of Men does not.

The necessity of Vitality stacking reduces the number of Rallying Cries a tanking Captain gets and reduces the power restoration from each Rallying Cry as well.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if we're going to have a PoT on Inspire, then all of the Inspires need to be variations of the Blade Bro Inspire....

Also, the LoM capstone needs to have a global power cost reduction on it, to help offset what tanking gear is doing to your character sheet.

Last edited by Almagnus1; Apr 08 2013 at 01:12 PM.

Maley Oakensage, Captain of Elendilmir

Alas Elendilmir, may you *jingle jangle* forever in the Forgotten West

Thing is, the amount of power healed per minute through Focus is less than what you get from 1 Rallying Cry, at least for my Captain. It is so insignificant that you can easily make up for it as a Captain. I did Saruman T2HM quite a few times on my Captain @ lvl 75, and lets just say power was the least of our concerns.

It just depends on the group. If power is not a concern for your group, then of course critical rating would be the better choice. But if you just wiped because your ministrels ran out of power and couldn't heal people (which was the case in the example I used) throwing down victory banner and putting Focus on the healers is the wiser choice in my opinion. More critical rating isn't ALWAYS the best choice - and not all players are created equal when it comes to managing their power.

Not to derail our weekly Jeremi/Almagnus fight, but Elrantiri is totally right. To be at least somewhat constructive in this thread (despite the fact that the following has nothing to do with the Focus buff), here are the issues I see that result in LoM's bad power situation:

Blade-Brother and Song-Brother both have power restoration on Inspire. Shield-Brother does not.

Hands of Healing and Lead the Charge trait lines both include power cost reduction in their trait set bonuses. Leader of Men does not.

The necessity of Vitality stacking reduces the number of Rallying Cries a tanking Captain gets and reduces the power restoration from each Rallying Cry as well.

I'm not fighting, and refuse to fight. If you think this is me fighting, I hope you never witness when I actually am

As far as Eltrantri being "totally right" - that may be true, but his example was irrelevant to my point, because he said power was not a concern for him and his group. I never said Focus was a good buff for people if they had no power issues.

Yes please. I have a cappy, but consider the mini my main. An extra 360 power per minute... that is roughly a single heal. Most combat does not last that long. In 99% of all LOTRO, this buff will never fully proc. For the other 1% (long boss fights) A single crit will likely provide more benefit than the entirety of the focus buff. .

Well if you were running out of power that is an extra heal you could have otherwise not used. And I admitted most combat doesn't last long enough for power to be a real issue in an earlier post - so that point is well taken and I agree with it.

And you shouldn't look at focus in a singular sense. See it as part of combination effect you can use along with your other power tools, such as Victory Banner, Song Brother, Now for Wrath and everything else. If looked at in that context - the power regen Captains can supply to the group is pretty impressive I think and can provide a real difference to players who struggle with power consumption.

It's not that bad of a buff, and doesn't really deserve the hatred it gets on this forum in my opinion.